How to build work with remote employees

If you plan to hire employees for “remote” work, then it is better to immediately dot all the points not only on “and”, but also on “e”.
Let us consider what needs to be discussed with the applicant on the example of the vacancy of a freelance journalist of the city portal.

First, you need to immediately identify the daily volume of work performed:

• How much news, how they should be issued, where to get them.
• Do I need to write comments myself and if so, how many.
• Do I need to add polls to the news and, if so, how many
• The minimum number of tags for each news
• Are there minimum and maximum volumes of text, and if so, which

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It may seem that this is superfluous, but the more points are specified, the less there will be grounds for discontent. When we worked with journalists without clear KPIs, both sides were always unhappy - it seemed to us that since the employee is at home, he does nothing, and even when there was a lot of news, there were few of them. Well, the employee is certainly unpleasant - he does, he tries, but he is told little, he needs more. Well, or the employee really does little, but we do not follow, and as a result, after two weeks, we are unhappy that there is little news, and the employee does not understand what the matter is, because no one said how much is needed.

Now we have clear indicators for each item, we immediately provide all the sources and give a filling guide, which can be accessed in case of unclear moments. And indeed, the number of controversial moments or discontent disappeared.

Secondly, you need to pronounce all the main points on the quality of work:

• what style of text should be
• text uniqueness percentage
• what headlines: true, “yellow”, neutral
• from which sources to take in the first place, from which second
• are typos allowed or not, if yes, where and how much
• will you penalize an employee, and if so, for what and for how much

One of our employees once mistakenly put the “good news” marker on the obituary. When we saw this, of course, we were upset and even got a little angry, reprimanded, but did not penalize, because the man was very sorry, and it was the first such mistake. However, warned that the next time there will be a fine.

Thirdly, it is necessary to specify the working time and methods of communication:

• whether the schedule is floating or you need to strictly adhere to the daily routine in the office
• whether it is possible to move away from the workplace and for how long, whether it is necessary to warn about it
• is there a lunch break and what
• how and where it is better to ask questions: in Skype, by mail, by phone; all at once during the day or as they arise

It has often happened with us that the chosen method of communication is not very convenient, but you understand this when it has already specifically got you, and the habit of communicating in this way has already been formed, and additional efforts are required to change it. It is much easier to initially choose the appropriate method and agree on it in order to avoid problems in the future.

Fourth, since we are talking about a remote employee, you should specify the issues of registration and remuneration: whether it will be full registration for the TK or not, how the salary will be paid, whether vacation is possible or not, and if so, at whose expense they are paid etc.

It often happens that many nuances are meant as if by themselves, but the employer means one thing and the employee means another. For example, we had a case when an employee finished work at 5:00 pm, when we thought that he should finish at 6:00 pm. He worked without lunch and believed that once he worked out his 8 hours, he could finish the working day earlier, however, since the entire office is open from 9 to 18, then we counted on this very time. What is interesting, it turned out that it was only after a month, when it took something urgent to do at half past five in the evening.

As our practice of working with remote employees shows, it is much easier to clarify all points in advance to avoid serious problems or misunderstandings in the future. At first, in the first years of the company's life, we had constant problems, and at some point we even completely abandoned freelancers. However, about a year later we returned to this issue and, having completely revised our approach, we were able to achieve the results we needed by building good and long-term relationships with our remote employees.